Vehicles, such as automobiles, may include equipment for mitigating the impact of a range of collisions. For example, for relatively large magnitude collisions (e.g. with another vehicle at a high speed), vehicles may further include systems and components for managing the collision energy, such as certain components that deform and/or detach towards reducing collision impact on the passenger areas. In another example, for collisions with pedestrians, vehicles may include equipment such as bumper- or hood-mounted airbags and hood-lifting systems. To control and employ such equipment, the vehicle is required to detect a corresponding collision. Current mechanisms for detecting such collisions suffer from drawbacks including, for example, their complexity and cost.